- SurvivalBlog.com - https://survivalblog.com -

Preparing Game Meat For The Table, by Kestrel

As a hunter I’ve often heard the question, “Doesn’t ____ meat taste gamey?” I get this question from people who have never eaten game meat or from those who have eaten improperly-prepared game. The word “gamey”, to me, speaks of meat with a rotten flavor. I’ve had spoiled meat before, and it does indeed taste “gamey”. My usual response to the above question is that wild game just has a different, often stronger, flavor than the beef that we are used to in this country, but there is no reason it shouldn’t be delicious.

In this article I will give some tips to ensure that the meat from animals killed in the field, especially wild game, will taste good when it gets to the table. During hard times, or right now with hunting seasons going on and meat prices as high as they are, you might want to kill an animal to feed your kids. Small game is pretty easy and a good place to start. A few pounds of squirrels is easier to take care of than a couple hundred pounds of deer.

Gutting

After the shot, get the animal gutted as soon as possible. There are videos and books about field dressing animals, but I’ll explain the whole process here. Just search youtube, if it isn’t clear. Intestines hold a lot of bacteria, and dead animals will start to bloat immediately. The longer you let the animal sit, the more problems you will have. I’ve shot caribou and pronghorns that have gotten swollen abdomens within a few minutes of death. If you kill an animal and notice the stomach (or paunch area below the ribs) is bloating, be extra careful with the first incision. Cut from the sternum to the pelvis. If you’ve done it right, the intestines will still be contained in an internal sack. You want to cut the skin, not the intestines; if you cut the sack holding the intestines, it’s okay. However, getting half-digested food and feces on meat will ruin it (duh). Some animals dress out easier than others. Sometimes the intestines roll right out with hardly any effort at all, while sometimes they hang up in the carcass. I don’t know why. There really doesn’t seem to be any pattern to which animal will be hard or easy to gut. Take your time with the ones that don’t clean easily, because pulling on intestines will tear them and ruin meat. Also, be careful with the bladder.

Once the digestive system has been pulled out of the carcass, you must deal with the still-attached colon. Be careful here; we all know what the colon contains. There are a couple of ways to deal with this. You can cut deeply around the anus, from the outside in, being careful not to nick the colon, and pull the whole thing out through the cavity. Also, the pelvis can be split, exposing the last few inches of colon for easy removal. The method I find fastest and easiest in the field is to strip the colon by pinching it between the fingers and pushing the contents out or further into the intestines then cutting the colon and tying it off with an overhand knot to be removed during skinning.

Cleaning the Upper Carcass

Now you can clean out the upper part of the carcass, including the lungs, heart, liver, and esophagus/trachea. The ribs can be split up the sternum for easy access. I don’t usually do this, nor do I like to split the pelvis. It is much easier to keep debris off of the meat while I’m getting it out of the field with the carcass as closed up as possible. You’ve probably shot the animal through the heart/lungs area, since it is the biggest vital target, so this part of the animal will be a little messy. Just cut the diaphragm, reach up into the rib cage with your knife in hand, and cut the trachea as high up as you can. The heart and lungs will come out now. The heart can be eaten; put it in a bag.

The Liver

I’ve saved the liver for last. It probably came out with the intestines, and that is okay. If you cut the liver while removing it, you probably have a carcass full of blood. That’s okay, too. (I never understood how five pounds of liver could hold four gallons of blood.) I would recommend leaving the liver in the field. Some state game agencies recommend this, too, because livers can contain a lot of toxic stuff. The liver holds dangerous elements, like arsenic and cadmium, that are filtered out of the body. If you like liver, stick to beef liver.

Cleaning and Cooling Down

Now that the animal is “field dressed”, get it cleaned out and cooled down. If you are hunting on the back forty, like most deer hunters east of the big rivers, this means bringing the deer back to the house or barn and hanging it to cool. I always wash the carcass out with cold water. In early fall this can be done with the garden hose; during winter a few five-gallon buckets of water will do. It is easier to do if the animal is laying in the bed of a truck or trailer. Just pour water into the carcass and tip it up so everything can drain out.

As for cooling, this is a little tricky. I hang the animal head down. If the weather is warm, I will pour a bag of ice into the carcass. If it is warm (during the hunting season this means in the 50’s-low 60’s) but a frost has killed off the flies, I will skin the animal immediately and be sure that it is hung in the shade where a cool breeze can get to it. Leaving the hide on will insulate the animal and keep it too warm for too long. If the flies are still around, you will need to wrap it in something to keep them off. Game bags work but so do burlap or a bed sheet. Also citric acid can be sprayed on the meat to keep off bugs. If it is below freezing, leave the hide on and skip the ice. Ideally, you want the meat refrigerated, not frozen. I remove the head and what’s left of the trachea during skinning. If you can hang the carcass in a controlled environment that will keep it at a constant cold temperature, you can hang it for two to four weeks before butchering. This will help tenderize the meat, but most of us don’t have a walk-in refrigerator in which to hang a deer. In warm weather, the animal can be butchered after rigor mortis has passed, which should be a few hours. Be aware that if the temperatures are in the 50’s during the day, they will probably be in the 30’s during the night, so leaving meat to hang at least overnight is probably a good idea. In cold weather, I’ll let it hang for two to five days, if I can keep it from freezing. If it is going to freeze, I just go ahead and butcher.

If you kill something but can’t get it home, “quarter” the animal and hang it in game bags. Game bags [1] are thin cloth bags, usually cotton, that allow air to cool the meat, but they keep dirt and insects off. Skin the animal and remove the front quarters, hind quarters, back straps and tenderloins, and neck meat. If you want the ribs, it is up to you; I never take the ribs. The ribs often have a bullet hole in them and bits of lung splattered around inside of them. Lungs are full of bacteria, and there isn’t much meat on a game animal’s ribs.

Gutless” Method of Field Removal

Here I’ll explain the “gutless” method of getting an animal out of the field. This also covers quartering. Quartering is the same, whether your animal is hanging in the barn or you have an elk down a few miles into the mountains. Skin the animal as you go, starting on either the hind or front quarters. For the front quarters, skin from the “wrist”, removing the foot at the joint. It takes a little practice, but you can slice the outer tendons of the joint, then snap it back on itself, and cut the tendons inside to remove the foot without a saw or something to chop with. Skin down the inside, past the elbow, and into the armpit area. Quartering is a two man job– one man to hold the now-skinned appendage off of the ground and one to cut. If you are alone, tie the leg to something to hold it off of the ground. The front shoulders float and are easily cut off. The hind quarters are similar to the front but are heavier and attached to the pelvis via a ball joint. Find the joint and slice the tendons. The rear quarters can then be removed. The backstraps run from the shoulder to the hips on each side of the spine. Skin back to the spine, then slice down between the spinal process and the meat, then between the top of the ribs and the meat. Keep cutting until the backstrap is free. The neck meat can be removed from either side of the spine by skinning the neck and simply slicing it free. The last cut to remove is the tender loin. The tender loins lay inside the carcass along the back between the pelvis and ribs and can be removed once the backstraps are off. Now your meat is removed; you have a pile of bones and guts, which you never had to touch, left for the coyotes.

Improving Meat Quality

Now, we have the meat out of the field. It is cool, clean, and ready to be cut into steaks. Here are some tricks to improve the quality of what you eat:

With a few extra minutes of preparation and a little extra care, you can be eating some of the healthiest meat available, and it will taste good, too. Does venison taste “gamey”? Nope, not even a little. Properly-prepared venison can be thrown on a grill and cooked just like a New York strip. The flavor will not be the same as beef, anymore than the flavor of lamb will be the same as beef. Embrace the difference, and enjoy the meal.

Best regards.